Britain’s experts on the Middle East met in Cairo on 13 March, and were instantly dubbed the ‘forty thieves’, to Churchill’s great amusement. There were senior British military officers, Churchill’s London-based advisers, and the officials from the region including Gertrude Bell and Sir Percy Cox. But it was the British agent in Somaliland, Sir Geoffrey Archer, who stole the show when he arrived with two young lions. Allenby – now Britain’s high commissioner in Egypt – hosted a party at the start, and described the moment when the lions spotted one of his own pets across the Residency garden.
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